Early Contract Termination

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Has anyone here managed to terminate a contract without penalty because the service had degraded to the point of being unusable in the intended location? This is not an O2 issue, so any first hand feedback is most welcome.

To explain, My friend who lives in Bristol, has had a business tariff with Orange for several years with excellent reception from 3 Masts nearby but a few months ago the service degraded sharply (Since T & Orange merger), and he has since been fobbed off about the poor reception quality with excuses ranging from iPhone needing reboots or firmware upgrades, to recommending alternative handsets (with a carrot & stick contribution).

Eventually it was discovered that in fact 2 out of 3 Masts are OFF for whatever reason (Not given) and that there is no timetable for a resolution or any acknowledgement that they were not retired.

Meanwhile he has a year's contract at £35 p/m for a business line that he can't really use. Orange CS proposed that he should use his private Landline for his company business and they will at best contribute £50 towards buying another phone (A Nokia or any Broadband based solution?) from them with no guarantee of a fix. They have refused to loan a handset to test their recommendation? But they did move him to T-Mobile as a test but this made no difference to the reception. So;

a) Has anyone managed to terminate a contract early without any penalty?
b) Does the S.O.G act apply to contracts if reception is not fit for purpose?
c) Has Trading Standards helped or offered any redress to resolve this kind of issue?

Any thought or ideas will be most appreciated.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Usually a contract for a business service (not necessarily mobile phone) would have some added guarantees compared to that of a private/personal contract.

For example a Key Performance Indicator relating to service level.

Is there anything of that description in the T&Cs ?

[perksie]

The way I see it you have have to exhaust the complaints procedure of the company concerned, then it may be possible to take it further.

A unilateral cancellation of the contract is not the way to go.

[ewanrw]

I work in the B2B side of the industry, and the same rules apply as consumer when it comes to signal/service, so it won't be an easy one to get out of.

The reason they support UMA is due to their history of poor signal, and it's one of the reasons that they now offer the Cel-Fi RS2.

It would be worthwhile to note that since the EE JV, Orange have switched off most of their base stations in NI, so this could be a similar situation.

ewan

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the delay in my reply,

I enquired further and it seems that the complaints process is a dead duck as Orange will not recognise there is a problem, I also found out that he contacted OFCOM and has reached the conclusion that it will take too long and is unlikely to make a difference.

He is now thinking of transfering the Contract to his other company before that is liquidated if that is possible? Meanwhile I offered him the use of one of my O2 contract mobiles to try out for a month to see if he gets better reception?

I guess the only concern left is about transfereing his number to whatever provider he choses before or after he manages to move the contract to the other company.

About the only redress he has for now is to lend his Sim to another family member for their business use and let them hammer the usage to ensure maximum value for money.

Ironically, he would have been very happy to buy a signal booster or repeater from Orange had they recommended that or arranged a short loan for testing.

What a way to treat old loyal customers.

Cheers